Written by Ursula Hurn, Digital Organizer
Best known for her skill in digital organization, Ursula Hurn is the creator of the IG OrganiSZer®, a simple yet effective social media content management system. She teaches best practices for digital organization and how to implement her systems. She has over 30 years of digital organizational experience and offers practical application.
Using social media to promote your business is an inexpensive way to get out there. It’s inexpensive financially, but it can be expensive in other ways, like stress, time, and frustration. Just getting started can also create its fair share of frustration, but if you know how to set things up the right way from the start, you’re way ahead of the game!
What does being a SmartStarter mean?
If you don’t know where to start with setting up your social media accounts, or you’ve already done so but you’re not sure whether your accounts have been set up in the most efficient and effective way, be a ‘Social SmartStarter’ and get some help.
A little simple guidance at the start of your social media journey, on platform choice and how to avoid common mistakes, can save you headaches, heartaches, and frustration later down the track.
There are five common mistakes that can silently sabotage your visibility and limit your social media growth.
The five common mistakes
These mistakes are commonly made, but they are easy to fix.
Account type: Selecting the wrong account type limits features you need as a business owner.
Mismatched connections: Mismatching Facebook and Instagram pages will limit your reach.
Insufficient security: This is an open door to hackers and requires more attention than it usually gets.
Inconsistent branding: Not having clarity about your brand and your message will confuse your followers and potential clients.
Haphazard posting rhythm: Posting inconsistently will destroy your engagement and kill your momentum.
Why it’s important to get it right
Building your network and your presence on social media is not a five-minute job. It takes effort, commitment, and consistency. The intention with all of that is to foster the ‘know, like, and trust’ required for building relationships with followers who may or may not become clients at some point, if you are providing a suitable solution to something that is a big enough problem for them.
When you have your accounts set up for maximum benefit and efficiency, and you have a system in place, creating the presence and maintaining it just becomes SO much easier, less time-consuming, and way less stressful.
Related article: Why Do Systems Work?
Tips on how to avoid the 5 common mistakes
1. Account type
To get the best out of your social media account to promote your business, you need a professional, business, or creator account. Most platforms these days have the option to select either a personal or business/professional/creator account. For business, the latter three are the most appropriate.
The personal option, in most cases, will limit your access to extended functionality such as advertising and analytics, which show you metrics on how your posts are performing. For marketing purposes, it’s important to know what content is serving you and your potential clients the best.
If you’ve selected the incorrect type when you set up the account, you can change this in the settings of the application, whichever you have chosen to represent yourself and your brand on. If you’ve had a personal account for a long time with lots of personal posts, it may be better to create a separate account to represent your business.
2. Cross-posting
On some connected platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, you can put up a post in one place and choose whether it is automatically posted to the other two connected platforms. The ability to cross-post increases your reach and limits the time it takes to be consistent with posting, as you are killing two birds with one stone, as it were.
Facebook also gives you the option to have a separate business page connected to your personal profile, so it’s important to make sure that you’ve connected the correct pages and account. You don’t want to have personal posts cross over into your business page, especially if you are posting things that may be slightly controversial or too personal. It’s fine to post those on your personal profile, but they don’t make a good impression when you are portraying a professional image on your business account and pages.
3. Account security
This is an area that typically does not receive enough attention. Research published on the Internet shows there is significant hacking going on across all social media platforms, leading to data loss and loss of access to the hacked accounts. It’s probably not possible to eliminate this risk completely, but following these six steps will go a long way toward keeping your social media accounts safe:
Enabling two-factor authentication (2FA) using a code generator such as the Google Authenticator or LastPass apps provides a second layer of security over and above your password.
Using a strong, unique password for each site you log into limits how many sites a hacker will have access to if one of your passwords is compromised. Use a phrase combined with capital and lowercase letters, and include numbers and allowed special characters such as !, @, #, $, or %.
If possible, such as with Facebook and Instagram, add additional admin managers to your accounts. That way, if you are hacked or locked out, they may still be able to access your account and remove the hacker.
Use a password manager on your internet browser, such as LastPass or Norton, to keep stored passwords and login information secure.
Avoid clicking links in messages or emails unless you trust the person who sent them. If you’re not sure, don’t click anything until you’ve personally checked with them.
Regularly monitor the activity on your account. If you get notifications that unauthorized access was blocked, change your password.
4. Brand consistency
It’s easy to confuse followers and potential customers if either or both your social media messaging and branding are unclear. If they are confused about what you are offering, the likelihood is strong that they will find someone else with a similar offering and a clear message, and buy from them rather than you.
Both branding and messaging need to be appropriate and representative of you and your offering. They should be simple and understandable. You have about three seconds to get your message across successfully. If it doesn’t match up or it’s not clear, it’s like a classical music lover suddenly being bombarded with heavy metal, it probably won’t deliver the desired outcome for either of you.
Branding doesn’t have to be complicated, but like posting on social media, it needs to be consistent across all your platforms.
5. Posting rhythm
Like the rhythms of life, there should be rhythm to your posting strategy. Consistency is what helps build the ‘know, like, and trust’ required to grow the relationships formed on your social media. Hopefully, those relationships will eventually turn followers into valued clients and repeat customers.
Know: If you don’t consistently show up, how will your followers, new or existing, get to know you? When you have strong relationships and friendships, it doesn’t matter if you only connect once every few weeks or months. But when you want your followers to get to know you, you have to show up regularly and be consistent.
Like: People can only decide if they like you when they know a bit about you. If you don’t tell them about yourself, or let them into your life just a little, they will never know whether they like you. Social media is exactly that, a place to be social. So give value, but also be social, approachable, real, and relatable in your content.
Trust: When you go to the supermarket, you don’t necessarily trust the employees because you don’t know them. However, you’ve probably learned to trust the supermarket chain, which is why you keep going back. The same applies to you and your business. If your followers don’t trust you, or don’t trust that you know your stuff, they will not buy from you. It’s important to post content that demonstrates your knowledge and shows that your solution will solve their problem. They also need to trust that you’ll show up consistently and not disappear tomorrow. When that’s the case, followers become customers and clients.
Where are you in this journey?
Are you well-established on your social media journey? Are you just ‘dipping your toe into the water’? Or are you still standing on the edge with trepidation? It’s not as scary as it may seem, and setting things up in the best way possible from the start will give you the best foothold to be successful in establishing your social media presence. If you would like to know more, book a free, no-obligation virtual ‘bring your own coffee’ call and see exactly how we can help.
Read more from Ursula Hurn
Ursula Hurn, Digital Organizer
Ursula Hurn is an expert in digital organization and systems. Being a lover of people, she understands the frustration and time-wasting that digital disorganization causes, especially when business owners don't believe it's a skill they can learn! With a burning desire to help SMEs succeed, her student- and client base is international, and she believes everyone has the ability to get digitally organized. She is only as far as a Zoom call away.
